Shoreditch Gentrification Update: Foundry To Close?

The Foundry in Shoreditch is under threat from developers who want to turn it into a '4-star Art'otel'. The hotel development, we are told, would include shops, an art gallery, an art cinema, a spa and a restaurant, all accessible to the public. There would also be a 'sky garden' and restaurant on the top floor.

Attractive as this may sound, it would involve bulldozing the current bar and artspace, set up some time ago by Bill Drummond from the KLF, which is a second home to many of the dirty art school skanks who frequent the area.

It would only be the most stone-hearted almost-East Londoner who wouldn't feel a pang of anxiety at the news that the latest move in the area's gentrification is afoot, so the announcement has already spawned the inevitable Facebook group, and is bound to bring out the usual collection of Middle Aged British Artists and local campaigners in force to defend it.

It's a shame that something which is so obviously not about the money could be replaced by something so transparently commercial. Maybe if Drummond hadn't burned that million quid it wouldn't have to be this way.